Cellular membrane cholesterol is required for porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus entry and release in MARC-145 cells

Sun, Ying; Xiao, ShaoBo; Wang, Dang; Luo, Rui; Li, Bin; Chen, HuanChun; Fang, LiuRong

To investigate the effect of MβCD on virus release from MARC-145 cells, cells were infected with PRRSV strain CH-1a at 10 4.5 TCID 50 per well. At 24 h p.i., cells were left untreated or treated with MβCD or MβCD-cholesterol. At the indicated time points post-treatment, the supernatants were harvested and the virus was detected by real-time RT-PCR. The data indicated that the number of viral genomes present in MβCD-treated cells was notably higher than those in mock-treated cells at each time point, and this increase was partially neutralized by cholesterol replenishment ( Figure 4A ). This suggests that the ability of virus release from MARC-145 is inversely related to cellular cholesterol level.